Pepper export turnover hits 385 million USD by mid-July

Hanoi - Vietnam exported over 182,000 tonnes of pepper worth 385 million USD as of mid-July, according to the General Department of Customs.

Despite complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, the country’s pepper exports to main markets, including the US, the Philippines, Egypt, and the UK, still witnessed increases in the period.

Vietnam shipped 123,000 tonnes valued at 2.84 million USD to foreign markets in June, up 115.6 percent in volume and 127.6 percent in value year-on-year.  Of the number, over 4,000 tonnes worth 9.88 million USD were exported to the US.

Amid the pandemic, the Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA) recommends export enterprises to focus on effectively exploiting markets where social distancing measures were eased such as China, the Republic of Korea, and Japan, and promote domestic consumption.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said 95 percent of Vietnam's pepper is reserved for export and the remaining 5 percent is for domestic consumption.

Vietnam has 18 pepper processing plants with a total capacity of about 70,000 - 80,000 tonnes per year, including 14 plants using modern technologies.

The ministry stressed the need to re-plan pepper cultivation areas, promote the application of scientific and technological advances in production, standardise farming processes and enhance clean agriculture-oriented production links.

According to statistics from the MARD, Vietnam's pepper production accounts for about half of the global pepper output.

Vietnam harvested an estimated 250,000 tonnes of pepper in the first four months of 2020, reaching over 50 percent of the target set for the whole year. The country is expected to supply about 350,000 tonnes of pepper to markets this year.